An Auror's Tale
by Austinwoods
Summary: The episodic adventures of a young, big-mouthed auror. Chapter 1 - "Big Mouths and Missing Fingers": Things go wrong quickly when Harry asks for help recovering a dark artifact. Post-DH.
1. Big Mouths and Missing Fingers

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

**An Auror's Tale: Big Mouths and Missing Fingers**

He flattened his slim frame out as much as possible on the broom and streaked across the night sky. A blur of light whizzed up from the earth below, but passed well behind him, hitting nothing but the disturbed air in his wake.

_Well, this definitely isn't going according to plan_.

There were shouts from below and behind. If Potter was correct then they'd be having company soon. Atherton cursed the fact that he'd never invested in a broom of his own. The piece of junk provided by the Ministry might end up costing him more than a race.

Two more colorful blurs raced past him on either side, this time coming from the rear.

_ Yup, definitely have company_.

Atherton began to bob and weave, trying to make himself a harder target to hit. Ahead of him, Potter would be reaching the edge of the wards soon. Once he did the mission was complete and the only thing Atherton had to worry about was escaping in one piece.

_That's all, just worry about continuing to live_.

His mother had always told him that his mouth would get him killed some day. As it turned out, his lack of flying expertise was increasingly looking like the culprit. He'd played a game of Quidditch or two in his day, but when Potter had asked him if he was comfortable on a broom, somehow Atherton hadn't thought about the fact that the answer might be the difference between life or death.

A slower moving spell came upon him and he avoided it easily. The sickly green ball of light stopped a few meters beyond him and then suddenly exploded outward. The force from the shockwave sent his broom downward—or at least he thought it was downward. The bright explosion had temporarily destroyed his vision, and the fact that he didn't hear his own shout of pain told him at least one of his other five senses wasn't doing too hot either.

_Shit_.

Without being sure which direction he was flying, Atherton only saw one option. And it wasn't a good one.

_Shiiiiiiiiiiit._

He let himself fall off the broom and began casting cushioning charms all over himself. They were much more effective when used on the surface being impacted, but in a pinch using one on yourself would help you survive what would otherwise be a particularly squishy landing. He just hoped that it would—

_Merlin's bloody arse!_

Okay, that was a new level of horrific pain. But on the bright side, horrific pain trumped horrific death any day. Now he had to try to repair the damage. His casting arm appeared to be broken, but Atherton has some training casting with his off-hand. The eyes were easy to fix, and he managed to regain his vision without horrifically disfiguring himself. He tried to sit up and survey the damage to his own body but—

_Fuck that!_

Yeah, that wasn't going to happen. He only made it about a quarter of the way before the pain was unbearable and he collapsed onto his back. He tried to pinpoint what was giving him the worst of it and quickly realized that a number of his ribs were no longer intact. On top of that, there was a searing pain along almost the entirety of his left side. Throwing fanciness to the wind, Atherton started liberally casting bone mending charms on himself. He mended his left arm first and then switched his wand between his hands to give himself an easier time casting. Each successive _CRACK_ informed him of a successfully mended bone—although the accompanying sharp agony would have done the job even without the audio cues.

_What do you know, my hearing came back_.

He supposed there was a silver lining to every cloud. By the time he had reached his pelvis he was even able to sit up, though not without a considerable amount of pain. His right leg was miraculously intact, but his left was a mangled mess. Bone was poking through the leg of his pants in two different places. A quick _CRACK, CRACK, _and stifled screamlater the appendage was mostly healed.

He tried to stand, but his leg was too shaky to hold the weight and he wound up on his hands and knees. Then he started coughing up blood.

_That's probably not good_.

Although Atherton had to admit he wasn't a trained healer, so maybe it was completely normal. Just his time of the month?

Regardless of the normalcy of his condition, he wasn't well-versed enough in healing magic to fix an internal injury like that. Bone-mending was fairly easy—although he was somewhat worried that his mends might not hold up and he'd collapse into a jumble of bone-twigs as soon as he exerted himself too much—but injuries of dubious origin were something else entirely.

If his mouth didn't get him killed like his mother had thought, then his lack of experience with healing magic might. Atherton had the sudden realization that the lectures on healing magic that he'd received in Auror training might have been important after all. Unfortunately he'd never been great at paying attention to such lectures. In his defense, his partner for that class had been Trainee Thompson, and she'd always had a way of distracting him.

A shout overhead and a jet of red light charring the ground next to him informed Atherton that he was out of time feeling sorry for himself. He summoned a nearby branch and transfigured it into a splint around his wobbly leg and then set off at a dead limp towards the treeline twenty meters away.

Spellfire peppered the path around him as he shuffled rapidly along. It seemed his friends in the sky were being kind enough to light the way for him. How considerate of them. He refrained from counter-attacking—mostly because he wasn't an idiot. His chances of hitting anything were slim, and he'd only be making himself an easier target.

_Not an idiot? Says the guy who just jumped off a broom intentionally._

Atherton ignored the voice in his head and threw himself into the trees. He rolled into a bramble, ignoring the scratching pain of the thorns and blunt pain of his fragile bones. He heard some brooms whiz past overhead, doubtlessly looking for him. But that was good, it meant that he had lost them for a moment.

"I think he's in the bushes!"

_Well that didn't last long_.

He was going to have to counter-attack soon if he wanted to have any chance of escaping. It would probably be best if he could ambush one of them. If he waited it out long enough they'd probably start searching on foot, then he could take one out and steal his broom.

"_Ignis!_"

A huge gout of flame spewed from the wand of a wizard above, and suddenly Atherton found himself surrounded by a passable replica of the sixth circle of hell. So much for the "wait and ambush them" plan. The bramble that Atherton managed to entangle himself in technically wasn't on fire, and he toyed with the idea of trying to wait it out. Then the first bit of heat washed over him.

_The hell with this._

He rolled out of the bramble and started furiously casting _aguamenti_'s to clear a path back out of the forest. Like a figure out of Muggle mythology, he managed to part the sea of flames, and moments later he stumbled out of the now-scorched trees, coughing from the smoke and the blood that he seemed to be making a habit of choking on.

A cutting hex from above caught him in the leg and Atherton let himself collapse like a sack of potatoes. He'd run out of options at this point. The best thing he could do would be to play dead.

_Better get some practice in. The real thing is coming up at any moment._

He clamped down on that thought hard and flung it out of his mind like an unwanted garden gnome. He'd never found fatalistic thoughts very useful. On the other hand, it seemed that the Occlumency training required by the Auror's Office was coming in handy.

A soft _thump_ hit the ground a few meters away, and Atherton almost punched the air in triumph. The bastard was actually dumb enough to get off his broom to finish him.

Two more _thump_s took the wind out of his sails.

_Well, shit._

Three against one weren't very good odds unless your name happened to be Harry Potter. And Atherton's name did not happen to be Harry Potter. There was only one thing left for him to try. It was a strategy that he had used when facing multiple opponents in training. Atherton liked to call it "wands blazing."

Three stunners came blasting out of the end of his wand as Atherton leapt to his feet. He could see the surprise in the faces of his opponents from the glow of the firelight behind him. Unfortunately his grand attack plan didn't go quite how he'd hoped. All three of his opponents got a shield up in time, and his leg had apparently had enough of his roughhousing for one day. It buckled sending him spilling to the ground.

Or perhaps his leg was secretly a _seer_, as a vivid green blob flew through the space that his body had been occupying just seconds earlier.

_ Sometimes you'd rather be lucky than skilled, I guess_.

Atherton stabbed his wand into the earth and muttered a curse. The ground split open, and the created fissure widened as it raced towards his three opponents. One of them closed the gap in the ground and got rewarded with a blasting hex to the face from Atherton's wand. Now it was his turn to collapse like a sack of vegetables.

_Two-on-one odds aren't so bad_.

Atherton scrambled to his feet. This time he managed to keep his footing. A spear of ice came flying in his direction, but it splashed—literally—harmlessly against him after a quick warming charm. The spear was followed by what looked like a tendril of smoke from the other man. Atherton had never seen the spell before, but judging from the disposition of his opponents he didn't expect it to be anything very nice.

He spun left and fired off a few earthquake charms in random directions as he did. As soon as he finished the dodge he applied a sticking charm to his shoes. Predictably, his opponents weren't thinking on their feet—and now they aren't casting from their feet either—both of them tumbled to the ground, but Atherton wasn't able to take full advantage because of the shaking of the earth. His first stunner missed wide during a potent shockwave.

_ Okay, who needs to aim then?_

Chunks of dirt flew into the air as Atherton bombarded one of the men with blasting hexes and anything else explosive he could think of. He couldn't tell if his opponent had managed to shield in time or not, but he prayed that his barrage was effectve before dodging to the left to avoid the cutting curse of the remaining wizard.

Or rather, he _would_ have dodged to the left if not for the sticking charm on his shoes.

_Wow, that was dumb of me_.

The other wizard had managed to cancel the earthquake, and his counter-attack had added another to Atherton's growing collection of wounds as the cutting charm sliced through his shoulder.

_Thank god for those numbing charms I used earlier._

Even with the charms he could feel a dull burning sensation growing in that part of his body. The fact that he had been using most of his energy to fight off his attackers meant that some of the spells he had used for the upkeep of his own body were going to suffer.

Sticking charm successfully unstuck, Atherton managed to jump out of the way of the next attack—a killing curse—and return fire with a series of stunners. Another killing curse forced Atherton to the ground again.

_This guy must be some hot shit to keep up the unforgiveables like that._

Trying to put his opponent back on the defensive, Atherton shot red sparks in his direction. They weren't actually very harmful if they connected, but most wizards didn't know that they could penetrate magical shields. His opponent turned out to be no exception, and Atherton was rewarded with the sights and sounds of the man being stung in the face. His follow up stunner was reflected off the man's shield. Atherton shot a gout of flame out of his wand, but his opponent swept it aside easily. Atherton began to—

"_Stupefy!_" came an angry shout from behind.

* * *

"Wake up!"

A great deal of pain shooting up his left side informed Atherton that his numbing charms had been cancelled. The two men standing over him—one of them caked in dirt—staring at him angrily informed him that he'd been hit with a stunner. The fact that he was unable to move informed him that he was under a full-body bind. And the fact that he was staring at two wands in his face informed him that he was in a great deal of trouble.

The treeline behind the two dark wizards had been extinguished, but the area around them bore the marks of their duel. The grass was charred all over the place, and a small canyon had formed in the earth where Atherton had unleashed his salvo of blasting spells. It was a wonder that the second wizard standing over him didn't look any worse.

"How many more are there?" The wizard that had been casting the unforgiveables—Atherton thought of him as "Hot Shit"—lead the interrogation.

There was an odd sensation as the body-bind was lifted from Atherton's head so that he could respond. The rest of him remained hopelessly immobile.

"Fifty," Atherton answered immediately. After practicing stunning spells so many times it hardly took him more than a moment to wake from one now.

Hot Shit gave a Slytherin smirk, but the only vocal response he offered was a sharp "_Crucio!"_

_Well this is a new level of horrific agony_.

The torture spell, combined with the broken bones all along his side, and the inability to thrash about and fight the pain were all mixing into a cocktail of otherworldly hurt. Atherton desperately tired to use his occulmency training to compartmentalize the pain. He imagined that he was on a faraway beach, and the only pain he felt was yesterday's sunburn acting up. Unfortunately, even an accomplished occulmens had his limits, and with pain like this it was a bit like trying to bail water out of a rapidly leaking ship. The sunburn was becoming something more akin to a third degree burn with lava being rapidly caked onto it.

Then it ended as abruptly as it had started. Well, not exactly abruptly. The feeling of a hot needle being shoved into every pore of his body lifted, but following it were waves of pain that seemed to follow every heartbeat. Still, it was preferable to the prior sensation.

"Care to try again?" Hot Shit asked. He was clearly the more senior of the two. Mud Face was doing little more than standing beside the other wizard and doing his best to look intimidating. Thus far it wasn't working.

"Okay, okay," Atherton said, feigning desperation. It was surprisingly easy. "A hundred. The rest of us are hiding in the trees. Come on out, boys!"

This time Hot Shit didn't seem amused. It probably wasn't often that someone didn't start talking after they got hit with a cruciatus. Atherton allowed a cheeky smile to creep across his face. It was the same smile he'd used a thousand times after being reprimanded by Auror Captain Hollis. He'd been told by a number of people—mostly women—that it was insufferable. Auror Thompson in particular hated it with a passion, and Hot Shit didn't seem to enjoy it either.

"Had training to resist the cruciatus? That's okay, I'll just have to get a bit more creative."

Atherton did _not_ like the sound of that. Hot Shit didn't look like the artistic type, so he doubted his idea of creativity would involve portraits and sculptures.

There was a yanking sensation in his stomach, and the next thing he knew Hot Shit and Mud Face were standing on the ceiling. Or rather, Atherton was suspended in the air by his feet. His left arm was maneuvered so that it was sticking out in front of his face with the fingers of his wand hand splayed outward.

"I'll ask you a question, and for each answer I don't like I'll take a finger," Hot Shit gave him a sadistic little smile. The kind of smile that would be cover material for _Dark Wizard Weekly_.

"What if you _do_ like the answer?" Atherton quipped.

"Then I'll obliviate you and leave you here. If you can get back to civilization without a wand then you get to live."

It was such an obvious lie that Atherton had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Of course Hot Shit couldn't tell him the truth. A quick death wasn't great motivation unless someone was truly desperate (although Atherton had to admit that a short drop and a sudden stop was sounding more and more appealing by the minute).

_That's great. Start fantasizing about my own death. If my shoddy healing doesn't get me killed my overactive imagination will._

"How about an obliviation and you let me keep my wand?" Atherton asked, trying to keep his captors on edge. It was a tactic that he had excelled at when being trained to resist interrogation. Often times he had angered the instructors so such an extent that they had "killed him" rather than continue with their questions.

"This isn't a negotiation!" Hot Shit spat. "How many others are there?"

Atherton thought for a moment. The truth would be betraying his comrades, a lie would be betraying his fingers. Ultimately he decided to go with an in-between option.

"Four," he tried his best to inject a dejected tone into his voice. Most dark wizards thought they were the coolest kid in Hogwarts, so it probably wouldn't occur to Hot Shit that his surrender was fake. "Four counting me that is. So three others."

Hot Shit stared at him for a moment, but Atherton didn't feel any probe of legilimency. Although if Hot Shit were an accomplished legilimens there wouldn't be much point in asking him questions directly. Apparently the dark wizard was satisfied with his answer. He nodded sharply.

"What were you doing here?"

"We got a tip about some suspicious activity in the area. We were just investigating," that particular lie wasn't likely to stand up to scrutiny, but Atherton hadn't been sorted into Slytherin, so he didn't have a great deal of experience with this sort of thing.

"The wards here would have repelled a routine investigation." Hot Shit made a quick slash with his wand and Atherton found himself short a pinky.

_Nice of them to remove the numbing charms_.

Atherton howled in pain. Beyond the fact that he had always been fond of his fingers, he recognized the curse that Hot Shit had used. Dark spells like that were designed to prevent healing magic.

"Care to try again?" Hot Shit asked, his sadistic smile spreading.

"Fuck off," Atherton told him. "I'm not telling you anything."

"You know," Hot Shit began twirling his wand between his fingers, something that annoyed Atherton to no end, especially now that he was short a finger, "I don't actually like using the killing curse. I _do_ of course, because its useful, but it just doesn't feel satisfying enough."

_Killing curse isn't satisfying enough? Yeah, you're definitely one sadistic fuck._

"You know what my favorite way of killing someone is?" Hot Shit asked.

"Right now I'm thinking it's talking them to death," Atherton ground out.

Hot Shit ignored him. "I like to hang them upside down and slit their throat. It's what muggles do with cattle."

"You have a lot of experience cattle farming?" Atherton would be damned if he was going to let this guy get through his evil monologue in peace.

Before Hot Shit could snap at him, a third broom-rider joined the two wizards interrogating him. From his upside-down vantage point Atherton couldn't get a good look at him, but the man's voice sounded panicked.

"They got away with the runestone!"

Now it was Atherton's turn to smile sadistically.

"I was wondering when you'd realize."

That had been the plan all along after all. The dark wizards themselves were small potatoes compared to the potential dark magic the runestone could have performed. Atherton himself didn't understand much about them, but Undersecretary Weasley had seemed seriously perturbed when the Head Auror had relayed the fact that there was one in the possession of a group of known dark magic users. Atherton had no trouble recalling her shrill insistence that the Auror Department retrieve it _immediately_.

Atherton's job had been to distract the wizards while Potter swept in and made off with the artifact. That plan had become more complicated when Potter told him that he was pretty sure the men on the ground had brooms. Regardless, they had gone through with their original idea. It had worked well enough, Atherton had briefly exchanged spellfire with the wizards before running off to bait them out. One he had gotten back to his broom and lifted off he saw Potter swoop in and grab the artifact. At that point it seemed like everything was going well. Of course, Atherton getting caught hadn't been part of the plan...

A string of swear words flew out of Hot Shit's mouth. He turned to Atherton and cast another cruciatus at him. Pain was becoming par for the course at this point, however, Atherton's pleasure at discovering the mission had succeeded allowed him to block most of it with occlumency. Unsurprisingly, it was a lot easier to picture a beach when you were filled with satisfaction than it was when you were fearing for your life. That wasn't to say that it didn't still bloody hurt though.

When the curse was lifted, the dark wizard marched up to him and crouched down so that he was face-to-face with Atherton. His features were twisted with rage and he conveyed his displeasure with a carefully placed blob of saliva projected onto the auror's face.

"Merlin, at least take me out to dinner first," Atherton mumbled.

"What was that?!" Hot Shit said coldly, leaning in closer.

Atherton returned fire with a bloody bit of phlegm. He unleashed a maniacal cackle that would have made Peeves proud as the dark wizard recoiled in horror.

"When I finish with you you'll be begging for death."

Hot Shit said some other evil things, but Atherton tuned him out. Just because he was going to spend his last moments in the company of the scum of the Magical Britain, didn't mean he to pay attention to them.

The dark wizard pointed his wand at Atherton's ring finger.

_Sorry ladies, looks like I'm about to be off the market._

But instead of the dark severing curse from before, Hot Shit muttered a longer spell that Atherton didn't recognize. The skin on his finger began to peel back slowly, revealing the raw flesh underneath. With it came a sensation akin to dipping one's finger into boiling water.

He tried not to scream in pain, but it was only seconds before he forfeited the battle along with his dignity. Even over his own wailing he could hear Hot Shit's laughter rising.

There was a flash of light and suddenly Atherton was face down in the grass. The sound of his own screams had been replaced by panicked shouting from the three dark wizards. A stream of spellfire came raining in from above like god's judgment of the trio. Mud Face took a stunner to the head almost immediately and dropped like a bag of rocks. Hot Shit was moving laterally, trying to track the target above him. Atherton himself couldn't make out anything more than a dark blur flashing past every now and then. It seemed that they were being swarmed by aurors. Potter must have returned with reinforcements.

The last dark wizard had jumped back onto his own broom and kicked off from the ground. He rose rapidly, and soon there were flashes of light bouncing back and forth between him and the riders in the air. No, the _rider _in the air. With the light produced from their duel, Atherton was able to trace the flight path of his rescuer. What he had mistaken for multiple aurors turned out to be the same attacker flying at high speed.

_Merlin he's fucking fast._

The aerial battle stopped just as abruptly as it had begun, and a _THUMP_ from nearby informed Atherton that one of the combatants had fallen from his broom. He doubted that it had been intentional. Only an idiot would intentionally jump off a broom.

The remaining duelist made a slow descent to the earth. Hot Shit was eying him warily, wand at the ready, clearly unsure if he was friend or foe.

"Steiss?" the dark wizard called out uncertainly.

_That's not Steiss, you idiot_.

The rider had reached the ground now and dismounted slowly. Harry Potter wasn't the biggest man around. Atherton himself had a good half a foot on him, and their frames were similarly slender. But something about the way that the Head Auror carried himself when he was fighting dark wizards was truly intimidating. There was a sort of serene anger that he had when he dueled that made him seem more like a force of nature than a wizard.

If Hot Shit was intimidated he did a good job covering it.

"I'll be crowned as the next Dark Lord when it comes out that I was the one to kill Harry Potter."

"I'll give you a chance to come with me peacefully. You'll get a fair trail in front of the Wizengamot." Potter completely ignored the other man's comments.

That was apparently all the talking that either man was interested in doing. Hot Shit led with a killing curse, but Potter conjured a wall of stone between them to intercept it. Funnily enough, most dark wizards tended to forget that although the unforgiveables couldn't be blocked by a magical shield, they were largely ineffective against _physical_ barriers.

The stone wall exploded towards the dark wizard as Potter banished it in the direction of his opponent. Hot Shit was forced to redirect the flight of the stone projectiles, which gave Potter plenty of time to conjure vines that sprouted out of the ground and gripped the dark wizard's legs. The man shouted in anger and blasted the vines away, but he was immediately forced onto the defensive as Potter sent a barrage of spells his way. Many of them weren't particularly powerful spells, but they were crippling enough that if Hot Shit didn't block them he'd be left at a major disadvantage. Plus they didn't take much out of the caster to use.

Another angry shout accompanied Hot Shit's retaliation. He threw up a shield and then sent it hurtling towards Potter with a sweep his wand. Clearly the dark wizard was no slouch when it came to dueling, as _that_ particular bit of magic took more than a little power and experience.

Potter bisected the shield with a strong slashing curse that he sent hurtling towards his opponent. The dark wizard rolled out of the way and came up firing another killing curse, but his aim was wild and Potter didn't even bother to dodge before returning fire.

_ Wait, why am I just watching them fight?_

Atherton had been deprived of his own wand, but Mud Face's supine form was less than two meters away, a thick wand clutched tightly in his right hand. Atherton rolled over to his former captor, ignoring the pain along his left side as he did, and pried open the man's fingers. He instinctively grabbed the wand with his left hand, but dropped it immediately from the pain in his third finger.

_Shit, time to put my practice at off-hand casting to work._

Grasping the wand in his right hand, Atherton quickly began working on a tricky piece of transfiguration. Normally he would have joined the fight with dueling spells, but in his current condition it would probably be best if he supported Potter in a more indirect way. Within a minute the transfiguration was complete, and where the bramble he had hidden under once was there now stood a grumpy-looking grizzly bear.

"Sic him, boy!" Atherton commanded, pointing his wand at Hot Shit, who was currently dancing around a series of spells Potter was throwing his way.

The bear complied immediately, and Atherton allowed himself to copy Hot Shit's sadistic smile as the creature blindsided the dark wizard. The bear's roaring mixed with the wizard's surprised shout, and the creature had the man on the ground in seconds. There was a flash of green light, and the bear collapsed, but it had done its job. Potter's stunner struck home, and Hot Shit lay unmoving next to his new furry friend.

Potter quickly summoned the spare wands lying about, and Atherton allowed Mud Face's to leave his hand. He collapsed onto the grass, which was surprisingly comfortable, although in his given state a bed of nails would have felt like heaven.

"Are you holding up?"

Atherton cracked his eyes open. The Head Auror was standing over him. The anger that had marred his expression previously had completely vanished. In its place was concern.

_Merlin I must be bad if that's how he's looking at me._

"Great," Atherton replied. He punctuated his sentence by coughing up a glob of blood.

Potter shook his head and got to work. He levitated Atherton into the air and rotated him as he applied some battlefield healing magic. It wasn't much more than Atherton himself could have done, but numbing charms had never felt—or not felt, rather—so good. A few meters away Atherton could see the two dark wizards bound tightly to one of their brooms next to Potter's Firebolt. He'd probably cast a slave charm on it so that he could get the two back to the Ministry quickly.

"Did you get the runestone to the Ministry?" Atherton found himself being floated over to a third broom, standing next to the first two.

Potter reached into the pocket of his robes and produced a stone the size of his palm. It was covered in tiny runes that appeared too small to have been written by a person. Of course, Atherton knew that the stone was shrunken; at its full size the stone would have stood taller than a wizard. Potter casually tossed it into the air and caught it before pocketing it again. No doubt Weasley would cringe to see him handling a powerful magical artifact so carelessly.

"Why didn't you take it to the Ministry and come back with help?"

"Only the two of us were prepped to get through the wards, remember? It would have taken too long to get another Auror through, and even longer to take them down completely. After I took care of the two that tried to intercept me I noticed that you weren't with me anymore. I wasn't going to leave without you and I figured the two of us could handle the others.

"Glad I could be of assistance," Atherton said sarcastically.

Potter conjured some rope and used them to help bind him to the broom. A sticking charm probably would have sufficed, but Atherton wasn't going to complain about someone taking precautions with his life.

"So does this get me a promotion?" Atherton asked.

Potter chuckled. "I'll think about it."

"Well in the meantime can I ask you for a favor?"

"Go ahead."

"Can you appoint Auror Thompson as my healer?" Atherton waggled his eyebrows.

Potter chuckled again and rolled his eyes. "I'm not sure that she'd be up for that. Now stop talking, you've definitely got a punctured lung."

"Oh, is that why it's so hard to breathe?"

"I said stop talking," Potter reprimanded him sternly.

"Sorry sir. Oh, shit, sorry again."

There was a frustrated exhale and suddenly Atherton found his lips sealed shut.

_Well, there goes the promotion. Turns out my mouth cost me something today after all._

"When we get out of the wards I'm going to portkey you to Saint Mungo's. Until then I'm going to stun you. Enjoy your rest." If Atherton didn't know better he would swear there was a hint of satisfaction in the Head Auror's voice. Potter produced his wand and pointed it squarely at Atherton. He tried to complain but all he could managed was a few disgruntled mumbles.

* * *

As usual, awaking from a stunner was an odd sensation. You didn't dream after being stunned, so it felt a lot like blinking and then waking up an hour later. Or if healers had been dosing you with dreamless sleep potion, it felt more like blinking and waking up a week later. That's what it was like for Atherton as he opened his eyes to find himself in a hospital bed with a healer fussing over him.

"Oh, you're awake," the witch said. She was fairly young to be a Senior Healer, but her name tag indicated that she was indeed "Senior Healer Faden." She definitely had the stern bedside manner down pat though. "Now let me tell you how stupid you are.

"I've been at Saint Mungo's for over ten years, seen all sorts of wizards injure themselves in all sorts of _completely_ idiotic ways, but _never_ have I heard of someone _intentionally_ jumping off a broom." Every word that she emphasized came with a poke to the chest.

"At the time it seemed like a good idea," Atherton replied weakly.

"Oh it did? Well I'm sure your three broken ribs, fractured humerus, ulna, radius, pelvis, and shattered tibia, fibula, and femur disagree. Do you have any idea how hard it is to shatter a femur?"

The healer moved to the other side of the bed and began running what looked like diagnostic charms all along his left side. Atherton flexed his fingers and toes experimentally. There was a moment of vertigo when the space he expected to be occupied by his last two fingers turned up empty.

_Looks like I'm never eating with chopsticks again._

Other than that he appeared to be in decent shape. His entire left side felt _tight_, and there was still some aching but it was much better than the pain from before.

The nurse clucked her tongue and seemed satisfied from whatever she had seen.

"You've been here ten years, and now I'm wondering exactly how long _I've_ been here," Atherton said.

"Five days," the healer said absently, running another set of charms.

Atherton grumbled and Faden gave him a sharp look.

"You should be happy you were asleep for that long. We had to vanish your bones and regrow them. Trust me, that's not a fun experience, especially when you've recently been exposed to the cruciatus curse."

"I can attest to that," a voice from the door called.

Atherton looked over to see Head Auror Potter being let into the room by an attractive blond in Auror's robes. Potter smiled at him and the blonde shot a dirty look his way before shutting the door and returning to the hallway.

"You've had experience with that sort of thing?" Atherton asked.

"Yup. Courtesy of a late friend of mine," Potter came over to the bedside not occupied by Faden.

"Was there something you wanted, sir?"

"Not particularly. I thought I might stop in and see how you were doing."

Faden answered on his behalf. "He's almost fully recovered, he should be out of here by the end of the day."

"No worse for wear, then?" Potter asked.

"I don't know if I'd say that," Atherton said. He held up his injured hand, a sight that made the Head Auror cringe.

"Ah, I'm sorry about that." Potter ran a hand through his hair. "If I'd been a bit faster you'd be good as new."

"Don't worry about it, sir," Atherton said, mustering a smile. "I'll never be able to use chopsticks again, but that's no big loss. Auror Thompson will be happy to know that the bastards didn't take any of the important fingers."

Faden scoffed and said something about incorrigible men before exiting the room. Potter ran his hand through his hair again, but there seemed to be a hint of a smile on his face.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that."

"I appreciate it, sir. Thanks for bringing her along by the way. I didn't think you'd take my comment about assigning her as my healer seriously."

Potter smile widened. "Well, it seems that the Auror's Office received information that some dark wizards might try to retaliate against you for your actions. Auror Thompson was assigned to guard your room during times when the hospital is at high-volume. We wouldn't want any dark wizards slipping into your room, would we?"

Atherton chuckled, creating a stiff feeling in the left side of his chest.

"And here Captain Hollis almost had me convinced that none of the senior Aurors had a sense of humor," he said.

"You should go on an assignment with Ron sometime."

The small smile on his face vanished and Potter became serious. "I wanted to thank you for what you did Atherton. I lobbied the Minister for a possible Order of Merlin, but the secretive nature of the mission meant it was a no-go."

That was a shock.

"An Order of Merlin? For _me_? I didn't even do anything other than play the role of Punching Bag Number 1."

"You saved my life," Potter said earnestly.

Atherton laughed aloud at that. There was that same tight feeling in his left side, but no blood came up with a hacking cough, so that was good.

"You did," Potter insisted. "I'm the Head Auror, but I couldn't take on six wizards at once. You gave me a distraction. You took two of them down. Because of you, a powerful magical artifact is now in safe hands. I talked to Hermione, by the way, and it turns out the runestone could have been pretty bloody bad in the wrong hands."

"But still, you did far more than I. If anyone deserves an Order of Merlin, it's you," Atherton complained.

"I already have one," Potter said, the corner of his mouth quirking into a smile. "Do they give out duplicates?"

"They give out duplicates of reprimands, so why not awards?" Atherton had plenty of experience with reprimands.

Potter nodded sagely, and his demeanor turned serious again.

"I've led more people than I care to think about to their deaths. I'm glad you're not one of them," he paused for a moment, and the shred of tact that Atherton possessed let him know that now would be a bad time for a wisecrack. "I've always wished that I could talk to those people one more time, if only to let them know that I'll honor the work they did and the sacrifice they made." He turned to Atherton. "I'll honor the work you do. I'm glad that I don't have to wish for the chance to speak to you again."

"Thank you, sir." It was all Atherton could think to say.

"You're a good Auror." At Atherton's questioning look, Potter amended his sentence. "You're a good Auror when you've got your mind on the job and not Auror Thompson, or how to best antagonize your captain." Potter rose and headed towards the door. "It was a pleasure working with you."

"Sir?"

The Head Auror stopped and turned around.

"Yeah?"

"Could you send Auror Thompson in? I'm afraid there might be a dark wizard hiding under the bed and I'm too scared to check." Atherton did his best to look like a pouting child.

Potter shook his head and laughed aloud. He left the room, and Atherton could hear his laughter echoing down the hallway as he departed.


	2. The Hogsmeade Date

**An Auror's Tale: The Hogsmeade Date**

"You've got exactly three seconds to get your hand off of me before I cast a severing curse," Thompson hissed at him.

"Sorry, I was just trying to keep our cover," Atherton whispered back, taking his hand off the small of her back. "I don't think my poor hand can take any more severing curses." He held it up to indicate the two digits he'd lost to a dark wizard the previous year.

"Then keep it away from me. If you really want to keep the cover that we're a couple then right now we've just had a fight." Thompson punctuated her icy statement with a kick at a loose stone on the ground. It skittered down the darkened street before coming to rest in the light streaming through the windows of the Three Broomsticks.

Hogsmeade weekends had been the highlight of Atherton's time at Hogwarts. He had taken almost every girl in his year along his usual route (the Three Broomsticks for some social lubricant, Zonko's for some fun, the Shrieking Shack to get the heart racing, and finally to the town square where a kiss was said to be good luck), and all but a few of them had rewarded him with a kiss—or more—afterward.

The lone holdout in his year (other than Helga Crumpler, whom he had never asked) had been Sarah Thompson. He'd spent most of his last three years in school fantasizing about escorting her through the sleepy little town. Of course, he'd never imagined that he'd be doing it as part of a cover story while they stayed alert for any dark magical activity.

Normally Atherton would have been digging deep into his bag of tricks for a woman as attractive as Thompson. But in this case he was fairly certain that she had already seen everything he had to offer... and rejected it with little more than a sneer. As far as he was concerned, there was no impressing the woman—so he settled for annoying her.

"Well if we've just had a fight then I think an apology is in order." Atherton drew his wand with a flourish and conjured a dozen red roses. He held them out for Thompson to take, and she glared at them so coldly Atherton was surprised they didn't wilt.

"Stop screwing around," she growled softly before plastering on a smile as two townsfolk passed the other way.

"Many women have asked the same from me, none have made a convincing argument," Atherton responded cheerily.

"You're disgusting."

"And you are as charming as ever," Atherton replied, not letting the cheer slip from his voice.

He stole a glance at her fake smile before it faded and heaved a sigh. He had to admit that she could light up a room—if she had ever wanted to—with a grin. In school she had often graced her friends and housemates with that same inviting expression. He, however, had never been so lucky. It seemed that he naturally brought out the scowls in her.

So Atherton, being the idiot that he was, had once bet a friend that he would get Thompson to smile at him before they graduated. He had been forced to pay up on that years ago, but he still held on to the wager as a personal challenge to himself. One of these days she would slip up and forget she hated him for a minute...

The two of them passed by the entrance to the Three Broomsticks. The front door opened to release a patron, and a gust of warmth billowed out from its depths. The brief respite from the bitterly cold night was enough to make him forget the crappy assignment he was on, if only for a moment.

He hummed softly as he imagined where he might be had he not foolishly volunteered for the job. Instead of out in the cold with his phantom fingers acting up, he pictured himself inside the bar, sharing a Burning Banshee with an attractive witch.

Strangely enough, the witch in his daydream bore a striking resemblance to the one beside him, but with none of her... _charm_.

"You going to hum all night?" Thompson asked bitingly.

Atherton shrugged, "I could sing instead."

"Get your head out of your ass, Atherton. We're on the lookout here." She sounded like she had only barely restrained herself from hexing him.

Normally he would have offered another sarcastic response, but in this case he knew that she was correct. As dreadfully boring as being an auror could sometimes be, he understood the importance that even the smallest aspects of his job could carry. Well, maybe not the redundant paperwork, but everything else. He had quickly found that when dark wizards were involved, the stakes were always high. Those stakes were magnified when the job took them to an inhabited area.

Atherton had always been thankful for the dark wizards who had the idea of constructing their secret lairs in the heart of some remote cavern instead of a flat in the middle of London. The former was always a much nicer place to fight in if things went sideways—as they were wont to do when aurors and dark wizards exchanged pleasantries.

"Have you spotted the suspect?" Thompson asked him.

"Yes. I spotted him ten minutes ago, and I've been waiting for you to ask." Atherton gave his partner an ironic look. "Of course not."

"Well keep an eye out."

He smiled at her. She did not return the gesture.

Thompson excelled at giving him orders. Atherton figured that she was practicing for her inevitable promotion to Auror Captain. She certainly had the mindset—and the stick up her ass—that made the change in position a near-certainty... assuming she lasted that long in the job. Most aurors didn't.

Atherton focused his attention back on "keeping an eye out" as the two of them passed by the Hogsmeade branch of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. He had never spotted a dark wizard while on patrol, but he supposed there was a first time for everything. Truth be told, he wasn't expecting it to be an eventful night, but when an anonymous threat was made against an entire town, the Auror's Office tended to take it seriously.

But just because the job was tedious that didn't mean it had to be boring. He could multi-task enough to keep watch _and _have some fun.

"So, Thompson." Atherton began. "Will you join my squad when I make captain?"

"I'd sooner look a Basilisk in the eye," she replied sharply. "You won't be making captain, Atherton. Ever."

"Oh, why is that?" he asked, glancing down a darkened alley as he did so.

"Because you're a half-witted, irresponsible loudmouth who's more concerned about the number of witches you've slept with than the number of dark wizards you've brought down." Even in the little light offered by the moon, Atherton could see the sharpness in her green eyes.

"Well, to be fair, one is easier than the other. The count is twenty-six to ten, by the way."

"Only twenty-six?" Thompson said with a scoff. "For all your bragging I guess you aren't as popular as you think." To her credit, Thompson was more than capable of keeping up with him in a verbal sparring match.

Truth be told, Atherton had no idea if the number was accurate, and he suspected that it was high. He wasn't actually the sort to keep count—he had a funny way of viewing witches as _people _rather than _conquests. _But that didn't mean they couldn't enjoy their time together…

The two of them passed by Madam Puddifoot's and Atherton frowned as he remembered the last time that he and Thompson had been on good terms. They had bumped into each other, each with a date in tow. Atherton still wasn't sure what had happened, but the next thing he knew, both of the dates had left, along with most of the other patrons, as the two of them held a shouting match while a flock of golden cherubs circled overhead.

He had to admit, that was definitely one of the more memorable Valentine's Day's he had ever had, if not his favorite. From that moment on, Thompson—who had always been regarded as one of the kindest students in their year—had seemed to hold nothing but contempt for him. Of course, he had never been good at resisting the chance to get a rise out of someone, and she was one of the few people that could give as good as she got. Things between them had just seemed to devolve from there.

Atherton sniffed thoughtfully. Truth be told, he wasn't sure why Thompson still bothered to trade barbs with him. Someone as smart as her ought to have figured out by now that ignoring him was the best way to make him stop. In any case, right now he was just glad that she did. He couldn't imagine how awful this assignment would have been without the company.

"Well?" Thompson asked.

"Huh?" Abruptly, Atherton realized he had been embarrassingly lost in thought.

"I said I guess you aren't as popular as you thought. What? You don't have a witty retort?"

"For you? Always." He put a finger to his lips and made a show of thinking over the perfect response. "Quality over quantity. I've never gotten any complaints." He finally responded.

_Well, not since I learned how to kiss properly, anyway._

Thompson scoffed again and didn't dignify his statement with a response. The forgotten roses in Atherton's hand had begun to frost in the cold, so he dispelled them.

"Do you really think I'm so bad, Thompson?" he asked with a boyish grin.

"I don't think you need me to answer that question," she replied.

"Okay, but you at least like me enough that you wouldn't leave me to die if we got ambushed, right? I mean, I don't _think_ we're going to get ambushed, but just in case, I want to establish some ground rules." Atherton was only half joking, despite his tone.

"I would get the job done," Thompson said, her face a block of ice.

_That doesn't inspire much confidence..._

"Well _I_ wouldn't leave _you_ to die," Atherton proudly declared. "No matter how much you'd rather bite it than spend another minute with me."

It may have been a trick of the light, but he actually thought he saw the corners of her mouth quirk slightly at that. Still though, she refused to grace him with a smile, as she had for almost twenty years.

_And it only took the thought of me dying to __come close._

He was about to needle Thompson again when she preemptively shushed him and nodded her head down the street. At first Atherton didn't follow what she was trying to show him, but then he realized.

Zonko's was closing up for the evening, but the light remained on inside. In front of the building, a thin man in a dark cloak was trudging along slowly. As the two aurors watched, he cast a furtive glance around—in perhaps the most suspicious manner that Atherton had ever seen—before wrapping the cloak tightly around himself and picking up his pace slightly. The man himself wasn't particularly interesting. What had caught Thompson, and subsequently Atherton's, eye was the small shimmer in the air beside him.

Disillusionment charms were handy in a pinch when you didn't have access to an invisibility cloak—which fewer people did nowadays—but they had certain drawbacks. Chief among them: they didn't stand up to close scrutiny since they created a kind of rippling in the air, like heat rising from a fire. It could be a powerfully deceptive charm against the uninitiated. An untrained eye may not notice anything amiss, especially in low light. But aurors were initiated. They received training specifically to detect such displacements, which meant that whoever was trying to remain hidden up ahead was out of luck.

"What do you want to do?" Atherton asked his partner in a whisper. He knew that she would have a very clear idea of their best course of action, and any argument from him would likely be shot down. It was easier to just ask.

"We should follow behind and see what they're up to."

_Bloody brilliant, never would have thought of that, _a sarcastic voice said in his head.

"Okay," he said aloud.

The two of them slowed up slightly and, at Atherton's suggestion, struck up a lighthearted conversation. The way he figured it, a couple would be less conspicuous if they looked like they were having fun and happened to be heading the same way than if they were eying everything around but each other.

The man ahead of them started when Atherton chuckled heartily, but didn't quicken his pace. Atherton took pains not to stare at the man as he and Thompson passed by Zonko's. Even though he knew that his target wasn't looking his way, it was possible—even likely—that whoever was disillusioned was keeping a close eye on the two aurors. Instead, as a dutiful fake boyfriend, he focused his attention on Thompson. Her hair looked almost white in the moonlight, and he had to admit that it gave her a sort of otherworldly beauty.

Thompson didn't seem to get the "don't stare" memo. Her eyes kept flicking back to the figure down the road with a familiar squint. Atherton cringed internally, but he couldn't exactly say "stop being so suspicious out loud." Instead, he dropped as big a hint as he could think of.

"Hey, d'you remember what Jensen did at the Christmas party last year?" he asked the question lightly, as though recounting an amusing memory.

Thompson's face became grim, and she looked at him with confusion. Atherton smiled but gestured with his eyes to the suspects in front of them. At last comprehension dawned on her face. She released a cheery laugh that Atherton would have spotted as fake from a mile away. Fortunately he doubted that their targets knew his parnter half as well as he did.

Jensen had been an auror the two of them worked with on occasion. Even though he was assigned to a different captain, the three of them had known each other since Hogwarts and had gone through training together, so it wasn't unusual for them to be sent on the same assignments.

Almost a year ago, Jensen had been in the field with one of the other members of his squad. According to the testimony of that auror, Jensen's cover had been blown when he failed to maintain adequate distance while tailing a target. He'd been led into a trap. By the time his partner arrived, Jensen was dead and the target was gone. The tragedy had served as a warning to all the young aurors since.

"Oh yeah, that was something to see," Thompson said with feigned cheer. "Almost as funny as what happened to you the month before."

Atherton winced involuntarily. Only a fortnight before Jensen's incident, Atherton had let the same target get away from him. As far as he could tell, the dark wizard hadn't discovered him, but the man seemed to be paranoid by nature. On top of that, it had been his first assignment back after his stint in St. Mungo's, and he hadn't exactly been in top form. Regardless of the reason, the wizard had escaped without a trace. Atherton had filed a report recommending that any future aurors tracking the target take pains not to lose him. Naturally, he had blamed himself when Jensen's body was discovered. Head Auror Potter had tried to convince him otherwise, but still...

_Low blow, Thompson_.

They were moving away from the heart of the village now. The main drag of shops packed densely together had given way to a smattering of houses that sprouted out of the snowy landscape at seemingly random points. Trees became more frequent as well, as they neared the edge of the woods that eventually became the Forbidden Forest. Most students didn't venture out far into the village, as there was really only one landmark worth seeing in that direction.

The man stopped abruptly at a crossroads. Atherton made no effort to match, content to pass the man up if they had to. It wasn't like he had no experience following from the front. Fortunately it didn't come to that. The man nodded sharply and then took a quick left towards the denser woods.

Atherton threw an arm around Thompson's shoulders and pulled her into his body. He leaned over and whispered in her ear.

"Do we follow?"

Thompson flinched imperceptibly at his breath brushing past her ear, but otherwise made no indication of discomfort. Truly, she was a professional.

"Yes," she whispered back conspiratorially. She clasped her hand around his left arm—which was currently draped over her shoulders—and squeezed firmly. To an outsider it might have looked like a show of affection, but Atherton knew his partner was simply ensuring that he had his wand in his wrist-holster and at the ready for any unexpected action.

The "couple" meandered down to the crossroads and stopped there for a moment as though deciding which way to go. They glanced down the path their target had taken. The man was further ahead than he had been before, but he didn't seem to be walking any quicker. He also didn't seem to be feeling any less paranoid. Thompson narrowed her eyes at the man's back while Atheron pretended to consult the sign that was planted next to the road.

Suddenly, the man ahead of them stopped. He remained rooted to the spot for a long moment. Thompson's eyes narrowed further as she studied his actions, and apprehension began to rise in Atherton's gut. His partner was being too obvious; they were going to get caught. Slowly, the hood of the dark cloak began to turn in their direction.

Without thinking, Atherton laughed and pulled Thompson onto the ground. Her strangled cry of surprise didn't help with their cover, but he supposed it was natural enough that it wouldn't give them away. He rolled them so that she was atop him and hissed at her as loudly as he dared.

"_Laugh!_"

Her confusion and anger quickly melted away as Thompson understood what he was doing and released a long, and rather girly, giggle. It wasn't as pleasant as her natural laugh, but still it helped settle Atherton's nerves slightly. He laughed along with her, playing his part as half of a sickeningly-loving couple oblivious to the outside world. Still, there was something missing from the act.

"Kiss me," Atherton whispered.

"What?" she said aloud.

"Kiss—oh never mind." Taking matters into his own hands, Atherton rolled them again so that he was lying atop her. Quickly and confidently, he planted a kiss firmly on her lips. To his surprise and relief, Thompson didn't gag, although she certainly didn't return fire very passionately. He supposed that from a distance they would have looked convincing enough.

_Fifteen-year-old me would be jumping for joy right now._

They continued the awkward snogging session for as short a time as they dared before Thompson broke away and discretely cast a glance down the path where their target had been a moment earlier.

"He's gone," she said, pushing him away rather roughly.

"Ouch," Atherton complained as he scrambled to his feet. He offered a hand to his partner, which she ignored. "We have to follow. There's a chance that they're suspicious of us, but we can't let them get away."

"Obviously," Thompson said in an annoyed tone. "But we're going to follow quietly from now on. Enough of this cover nonsense. It's getting in the way of us doing our jobs." She tapped herself on the head with her wand and slowly her body faded from view, leaving only the familiar rippling effect behind.

Atherton followed suit, shuddering as he did. Having a disillusionment charm cast on you felt kind of like letting a clump of ice melt on your head. Fortunately, the sensation was short-lived, and within a minute the two aurors were moving down the path in the direction the man had traveled.

Before they got too far, Thompson whispered his name.

"Atherton."

"Yeah?"

She didn't stop moving, but her tone became more hostile. "You ever pull shit like that again, I'll kill you. I don't care if it _does_ break our cover."

_Okay, I guess I'm not as good a kisser as I thought._

"Noted," he said simply. It wasn't worth arguing with her about... not right now anyway. He sighed. It didn't look she was going to be smiling at him anytime soon.

They crept silently along the edge of the trees that ran parallel to the path. The shadows offered by the moonlight would help cover anything that the disillusionment didn't, and it wasn't long before they had caught up with the cloaked man. To Atherton's relief, when their quarry passed under particularly wide shaft of moonlight, he could see the blur of disillusionment was still moving next to the man. Now that they were out of the heavily-trafficked part of the village, Atherton could see the second set of footprints as well.

He nearly slapped his head in exasperation. He wasn't going to complain about some idiot dark wizard making his job _easier_, but still, you'd think that people would remember things like the fact that they left footprints in fresh snow.

Atherton knew this path well, and it was no mystery where the two mystery men were headed, so he focused his attention on not tripping over the stray foliage that littered the ground in front of him. He didn't want to imagine the look on Thompson's face if he compromised their mission by tripping and falling on his ass.

The rest of the walk was mostly uneventful. The two aurors trailed the suspects in silence. Maybe it was the sound of the wind rustling the trees about them—something about that sound had never sat right with him—but Atherton felt uneasy. Despite the fact that he and Thompson were firmly the hunters so far as he could tell, he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was stalking _them_. Every so often he cast a quick look around, but he never saw anything more than a lone fox going about its business.

He forced himself to write the feeling off as nerves and focus on the matter at hand. Before long, the duo in front of them had arrived at their destination, and Atherton eyed the ghastly visage of the Shrieking Shack suspiciously. It may have done him some favors in the past, but now it betrayed him by serving as the meeting place for whatever nefarious deeds that their two suspects had planned.

"Do you have my information?" A deep voice asked from thin air, making Atherton jump.

A large figure slowly faded into view beside the thinner one they'd been tailing, lending a visual aid to the formerly disembodied voice.

"Yes," the thin man hissed, considerably quieter than his co-conspirator. "It'll cost you though."

"I've already made a deposit to your Gringotts account," the larger man said impatiently.

"Yes, but I value my safety more than your money," the thin man replied. "My father made the mistake of thinking the other way once, he didn't get a chance to make it the second time."

"What do you want?" the dangerous voice ground out.

"A guarantee that you won't harm me once I've told you what I know."

"Fine, you've got it."

"No, no," the thin man said. "I want a real guarantee. Something that you won't be able to go back on. A vow."

"Whaddya think I'm an idiot?" the large man asked at an unreasonably loud volume for someone holding a clandestine meeting. "I'm not making an unbreakable vow with you. Even if I wanted to, we don't have a third person here to bind it."

_Oh, if only you knew. _

Atherton smirked. Apparently it was audible, because it earned him a pinch from the invisible Thompson beside him. Neither of the two wizards in the clearing seemed to notice.

"There are other ways of making a vow." The thin man said simply. He stuck a hand into his robes for a moment. When he withdrew it, he held not a wand but a small dagger. It was plain, but its blade glinted dangerously in the moonlight.

"You're kidding," came the blunt reply.

"That's my price." The thinner man held his hand outward, palm up, with the dagger on top. "It won't kill you, but I think the cost is heavy enough to prevent you from breaking it."

"Where do you even find shit like this?"

"It's what I do."

The big man hesitated for a moment, but then reached out and grasped the dagger. In a swift movement, he placed the blade against the palm of his other hand and slashed downward. He recited a promise not to harm the other man, but the exact words were lost, as the thin man was muttering an unfamiliar incantation.

The entire process took less than fifteen seconds, and then the first wizard reclaimed the dagger and tucked it back into his robes.

"That's settled then."

"Now tell me what I want to know."

"Okay, but fair warning: you're messing with very dangerous magic. Even if you're committed to doing this, there's a good chance you could kill yourself in the process. Beyond that, there's also the consequences that succeeding would have..." The thin man's voice was tinged with a bit of reluctance, but his counterpart was having none of it.

"I don't care. Give me the information."

"The last person to actually do this successfully—so far as I know—was the Dark Lord himself. Do you think—"

"Give me the fucking information." Evidently the large man was tired of waiting.

His meeting partner sighed and again reached into his robes. He withdrew what looked like a tightly bound scroll, and handed it over. He began to explain something about whatever he'd just handed out, but his words interrupted by a soft whisper in Atherton's ear.

"We should drop the anti-apparition wards and make the arrest."

"Should we call for back-up first?"

He felt that Thompson was shaking her head. "They'll take too long to get here. We need to move now."

Atherton felt a chunk of ice form in his stomach, warning him that moving in now without help would be a very bad idea. But it was too late. There was a swish of movement as Thompson drew her wand and spoke a key word. Suddenly there was a shift in the air, and Atherton shivered as he felt the powerful magic of the wards wash over them.

"Did you feel that?" The big man asked suddenly. He clutched his wand tightly and scanned the surrounding area for anything suspicious.

"What?"

"_Homenum Revelio_." The larger wizard muttered.

Again, there was a shift in the air, and Atherton felt the detection spell marking his position.

_Shit._

Thompson's response was slightly more useful than his own, but her stunning spell still failed to hit its target. She darted off into the trees to the right, so Atherton moved in the opposite direction, trying to split the duo's attention.

A huge severing curse split the bush that the two aurors had just been using for cover. A moment later, the tree in front of Atherton buckled under the force of a bludgeoning hex. Atherton said a quick thanks to the sturdy pine and then peeked out and returned fire with a volley of stunners. He was aiming more at a direction than any particular person, but he still forced the big man to conjure up a shield to absorb one of his attacks.

Atherton took a moment to survey the area. The smaller of the two suspicious wizards looked like he had made a break for it. He was currently trying to disentangle himself from some roots Thompson must have conjured to stick him in place. He looked up and threw a few hexes at about a ninety degree angle to Atherton's right, then returned to his struggle with the growing roots.

By contrast to his business partner, the bigger man appeared to have no interest in running. He threw back the hood of his cloak and displayed a manic grin before brandishing his wand and sending a gout of flame in Atherton's direction. Atherton rolled aside and managed to escape being immolated by a meter or two. He flicked his wand at the flames, and the snow that had caught on the branches of trees high above came crashing down to douse them.

A purple jet of light forced Atherton to conjure a powerful shield. It barely held under whatever curse the dark wizard had thrown at him. The next spell was an all-too-familiar green, and Atherton hit the ground to avoid the unforgiveable. The snow was freezing against his hands and chest, but he shook the feeling off. Unfortunately, the cold Atherton felt in his gut wasn't related to the elements. He recognized it as a healthy dose of fear—likely inspired by the face he had seen emerge from under that hood.

"Two on one? Not very sporting!" The man shouted.

Atherton peeked out again to find that the thinner of their two opponents had managed to free himself. Thompson had busied herself by poking at the remaining dark wizard's defenses. Thus far she hadn't been able to find a weakness.

The man effortlessly turned his body to avoid the stunner that Atherton had decided to contribute to the battle. He seemed impossibly light on his feet for his size, but Atherton had heard as much in rumors about his dueling prowess. He was beginning to think that not calling for backup was perhaps the worst thing they could have done, but in their defense, it's not like they had expected to run into one of the Ministry's Ten Most Wanted, and especially not Thorfin Rowle.

Rowle sent a killing curse at each of the aurors. The one coming at Atherton missed wide. He couldn't actually see Thompson, so he settled for telling himself that she was fine as well. A moment later, a cutting hex from the woods across from him confirmed that his partner was still kicking, and Atherton let out a sigh of relief before contributing a couple of stunners to try overwhelming their opponent.

A bright light began to build in the clearing as Rowle's shield absorbed their attacks, Atherton turned away to shield his eyes and stopped the assault, sensing it's futility. Unless they were willing to start throwing unforgiveables, it didn't look like they were going to be able to break through Rowle's defense with rapid-fire spells.

Thompson seemed to draw the same conclusion, and her stream of magic ceased as well. The light in the clearing faded, and Rowle's laughter began to fill the air. A chill ran down Atherton's spine at the man's complete lack of fear—or perhaps sanity.

"Come out and face me!" Rowle called.

"Yeah—no," Atherton muttered.

Thompson's response was a bone-breaking curse, that Rowle swatted away with a growl. His response was considerably darker, and once again Atherton felt a stab of fear for his partner's life. He swatted it away with memories of her thrashing him in training and refocused on the fight.

Not wanting to let Rowle's distraction go to waste, Atherton set to work on some more creative magic. With a sweep of his wand and a muttered incantation, the brush in front of him came alive in a flurry of motion as he transfigured it into a pack of racoons. He gave the animals another wave of his wand to augment their speed, and then banished them in Rowle's direction. They darted out of the forest hissing menacingly, and Rowle wheeled around to take them on. Rather than trying to blast each of the scurrying animals individually, he swept his wand over the ground in front of him. The snow quickly melted as a line of fire burst out of the ground. Some of the animals came skidding to a stop and were quickly destroyed by a large blasting hex. The rest scurried off into the woods fearfully.

The attack hadn't been very effective, but it—along with Thompson's follow up barrage—bought Atherton the time he needed for a more intricate transfiguration. The two trees large trees in front of him twisted together and began to change composition as their branches joined and morphed into the desired shape. Sweat matted Atherton's brow as he pushed to complete the process faster than he had ever attempted before. In less than a minute, he had created a solid-rock humanoid figure that stood over three meters tall.

The transfiguration was his own creation. It was a not-so-little something he had conceived of in his seventh year and affectionately dubbed "Rocky." He held quite a bit of fondness for the stone monster, as it had almost single-handedly grabbed him an Outstanding on his Transfiguration NEWT.

A tap on Rocky's leg and a temporary golem spell brought the figure to life. It slowly turned its head towards Atherton, who in turn pointed in Rowle's direction. Rocky gave a slight nod before launching himself in the dark wizard's direction, crashing through the foliage in his path.

Rowle's shout of surprise was quickly followed by a blasting hex. Gravel sprayed through the air as the spell took a chunk out of Rocky's right arm, but the golem kept coming. Two flashes of green light hit the stone figure, but the killing curse had no effect against something that wasn't _truly _alive. Atherton allowed himself a satisfied smirk as Rocky slammed a fist down on the spot Rowle had just vacated. The ground shook under the force of the attack, and Atherton took advantage of the distraction to reposition himself and resume the offensive.

His cutting hex caught Rowle in the leg, and the dark wizard hissed in pain. He whirled and threw his dark gaze on Atherton before following it with an even darker curse. Atherton sidestepped and attacked again, but Rowle had already moved away. His opponent had cleverly managed to put the golem between the two of them. Atheron cursed and then scrambled to put himself back in the fight as Rowle fended off attacks from Thompson and Rocky simultaneously.

Before Atherton could so much as get a good look at Rowle, a bright blue flash and a huge explosion sent him sprawling into the snow. Reflex kicked in, and he rolled to make himself a harder target while he tried to regain his senses. It was only a few seconds before he managed to blink the spots out of his eyes and tune out the ringing in his ears, but from the way the area around had changed it looked like a war had broken out in the meantime.

The trees surrounding the clearing were all leaning away at the trunk, giving the impression that they were recoiling from the Shrieking Shack in horror. Most of the snow had been blasted away, revealing dark charred ground beneath, and there was no sign of Rocky other than a couple of jagged stone pieces that had fallen nearly ten meters away from each other. Unfortunately, it seemed that there was no sign of Rowle either.

Atherton scanned the area thoroughly, trying to keep low among the trees. There was a rustling in the bush next to him, and he snapped towards it with his wand at the ready. His stunning spell died before it had left his lips when he realized that it was Thompson, not Rowle, who was emerging from the brush.

"I saw him head towards the town," Thompson said, exiting the woods and setting off at a brisk pace on the path back toward the village. "We have to stop him."

Atherton had more than a few bad feelings about that. "Stop him from what, exactly?" he asked, breaking out into a jog to keep up.

"Does it matter? We can't let a known dark wizard and former Death Eater run amok through Hogsmeade."

"Well it's probably not a great idea to start fighting with him in the middle of the village either," Atherton countered. "Especially not when he's willing to pull shit like that," he jerked his head back at the destruction they were leaving behind. It wasn't that he was afraid to face Rowle (well, he was afraid, but that was only because he wasn't an idiot), and he understood the responsibility they had, but he couldn't shake the feeling that charging in wasn't the most strategically sound plan.

A thought struck him, and Atherton glanced at Thompson. He angled his wand behind them and muttered an incantation. There was a small flash, and a bolt of silvery light shot off into the night, barely escaping Thompson's notice. It appeared that she had found something more interesting to keep her attention.

"There!" she grabbed Atherton's arm with one hand and flicked her wand with the other. A small floating orb of light arced out and hovered over the snow a few meters away from them. Underneath it, illuminated in the magical light, was a large footprint. What was interesting, however, was the small crimson smear running along the side of it. Thompson flicked her wand again, and the orb moved further, illuminating a track of footprints—each of which seemed bloodier than the last.

_I guess I nicked something important._

"Come on!" Thompson dashed ahead without waiting for his response, her head fixed firmly on the light illuminating the bloody path before her.

Atherton followed after, casting his eyes around nervously. He doubted that Rowle would fail to notice that he was leaking bodily fluids, and that meant he would know the aurors were hot on his trail. Atherton could think of a hundred ways the dark wizard could use that to his advantage, but it wasn't like there was much they could do about it.

"Hold on!" Atherton growled at Thompson's backside as they neared the town square. Normally he would have taken a moment to enjoy the view, but under the present circumstances he was more concerned about his partner getting herself killed.

She plowed ahead, annoyingly heedless of his warning. The two of them came to the town square—a fairly large open area with some kind of harpy statue sitting firmly in the middle. As a student, Atherton had always found the stone creature's twisted appearance somewhat humorous (and had made more than one crack about its resemblance to certain female classmates), but in the strange light it was cast now, it looked far more intimidating.

Atherton's squinted, and his eyes traced the line of Rowle's footsteps in the snow. They moved towards the center of the square, right up against the statue, before vanishing from sight. Either the dark wizard had moved past the statue, and it was now hiding the evidence or—

"Look out!" Atherton shouted.

Thompson's gaze snapped upward and her body tensed. She raised her wand and a shield began blooming in front of her, but it was too late. Rowle had emerged from behind the stone harpy, his own twisted visage matching the grotesque beast. He made an abrupt slashing motion, and a dark jet of light shot from the end of his wand. It flew straight through Thompson's partially-formed shield and smashed into her chest.

Thompson gasped in surprise and staggered backward. Atherton fired off a barrage of stunners and ran to support his partner. She turned slightly as he drew near and then crumpled to the ground.

_Fuck!_

Atherton dropped to a knee at her side, his wand and eyes firmly trained on the harpy statue while he reached down with his right hand and tried to feel for a pulse on Thompson's wrist. He nearly jumped when her hand jumped up and grabbed his own.

"Not… me. Get… him..." she wheezed out the words and then shoved him away.

Despite his worry, and the voice shouting in his head to stay with her, Atherton forced himself to his feet, and away from Thompson's side.

"Do you actually think you can take me on?" Rowle's deep voice boomed out from behind the statue, his tone mocking. "Many have tried, and look what happened to them."

"Fuck off!" was Atherton's reply.

While his mouth ran off, his mind focused on devising the most efficient way to ruin Rowle's day. He pushed out a massive non-verbal blasting hex, and the end of his vulgar exclamation was punctuated by a blast of crimson light and a cloud of smoke and stone as the harpy statue was blown apart.

A jet of green light came back at Atherton through the dust, and he leapt aside. He swept his wand wide, and the expanse of snow behind Rowle suddenly rose into the air and came crashing down in a huge wave. The dark wizard thrust his wand upward, and a jet of flame melted the snow threatening to bury him from above. The rest of the wave came crashing down harmlessly on either side of Rowle, who sneered and threw another killing curse at Atherton.

Atherton summoned a large chunk of the destroyed harpy into the path of the spell. The stone exploded, but he was left unharmed. He kept hold of the fragments from the statue and sent the sharp debris flying at Rowle. The dark wizard's shield held under the barrage, and he came back with three quick bludgeoning hexes.

The spells flew to either side of Atherton as he dodged and prepared to counterattack, but Rowle didn't seem interested in continuing the fight. He threw another bludgeoning hex Atherton's way and then turned and began to flee, firing dark curses wildly over his shoulder.

Atherton almost made to follow from instinct, but then he caught sight of Thompson's crumpled form in the corner of his eye. He bolted to her side, putting up as strong a shield as he could muster in case any of Rowle's wild attacks scored a lucky hit. Thompson's eyes were open and focused, but she was clearly in a lot of pain. Even more concerning was the extreme effort it seemed to take for her to breathe. Her wand lie forgotten in the snow half a meter away, and both of her arms were clutched across her chest. Her breath came in tiny puffs of mist at uneven intervals, and it seemed to be getting less frequent with each passing moment.

_Shit, what do I do?_

Atherton had never been good at anything more than basic healing. This looked like a nasty curse. Clearly something was restricting her breathing—a lung compressing spell most likely—but he had no idea what else might be going on. Curses could react violently if an unskilled healer tried to lift them, but he couldn't just sit there and do nothing. A faint murmur pulled Atherton's attention back to the woman in front of him.

"Chase… him," Thompson said weakly. Evidently, she was content to boss him around even with her dying breath.

_No, not dying. She's not dying._ Atherton repeated it to himself over and over as he replied.

"You're not in good shape." _Great bedside manner._ "I'm going to try to help."

"Leave..." Thompson began, but Atherton didn't let her finish. As the Head Auror had once done to him, he cast a silencing charm on his partner.

"I'm not fucking leaving you. Now stop talking. Just focus on your next breath. If it helps, you can use my dashing looks as a source of comfort." His voice sounded tired and afraid.

_ Not exactly the tone I was going for_.

Even in her current state (and unable to speak) Thompson conveyed her annoyance with a flash of her eyes. At least it was something other than pain.

Atherton turned his focus away from quipping and toward trying to keep Thompson alive. He did a basic diagnostic spell and saw that his initial guess was correct—the curse was collapsing her lungs. Again he was stricken by uncertainty. Any healing he tried might backfire but…

Abruptly, Thompson's hand shot up and clutched at his robes. He started, and then fear filled him as he saw the panic in her eyes. The small puffs of mist had vanished, and her chest was still even as the rest of her shook with the effort to breath.

No longer uncertain, Atherton immediately began casting healing spells. The first few he tried had no discernible effect, and Thompson continued to pull on his robes as she struggled for air. He reached up with his free hand and grasped her own from his chest. She squeezed it so tightly that he winced in pain, but his focus remained on saving her life.

"You're not going to die. I'm not letting you get off that easily," Atherton's voice sound raw. He shook his head and cast a look around wildly for ideas. In the distance he thought he saw a light approaching, but even if help was on the way it could be too late.

_Fuck it._

Seeing precious few options left, he tried something more drastic. He muttered out a long countercurse, trying to see if he could _feel_ the magic and fight back against it. He ran his wand over her chest, and then he felt it—like a small vibration in his fingers—the curse that was killing his friend.

Carefully, Atherton began trying to push back against the curse. He started off small, using as much magic as he dared so as not to hurt Thompson further, but it wasn't enough. Thompson remained unbreathing, and her hold on his hand seemed to be weakening.

Atherton pushed more power against the curse. Sweat ran into his eyes and his own breathing started to become ragged, but he refused to allow his concentration to break. Still, it wasn't enough. Thompson had stopped moving, and her hand was limp in his own. Her eyelids fluttered, but she had clearly lost consciousness.

"God damnit!" Atherton ground out.

He forced whatever he had left into combating the curse. Slowly, the oppressive force he felt began to move back. He thought he heard Thompson give a small gasp, but his eyes were screwed shut with the effort of fighting the dark magic. He kept pushing even as his head started to feel like it was splitting open and his arm shook violently. He felt his own lungs beginning to burn from the exertion, but he pressed on.

He kept pressing through the pain, heedless of his body's pleas for him to stop. The curse began to recede more and more slowly, until finally it was all Atherton could do to keep it in place. He was weakening quickly. The curse was too strong for such crude healing to vanquish.

Finally, the effort was too much for him to hold. His arm fell limply to his side, and he slumped over on the ground next to Thompson. His ears were ringing madly, and when he tried to open his eyes his vision was blurry and dark.

_I'm sorry. I tried._

He didn't even feel the cold of the snow against his back as the stars above began to spin and he descended into unconsciousness. It may have been wishful thinking, but as he fell away Atherton could swear he heard Thompson's soft breath next to him, and the thudding of footsteps from behind…

OoOoO

Atherton woke with a start and blinked the bright artificial light out of his eyes. He sat up abruptly, and a sharp intake of breath to his right drew his attention. He found a healer in St. Mungo's attire looking at him in surprise.

"Where's Thompson?" he demanded, swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

The healer recovered quickly. "You're not going anywhere until we've had time to observe you."

"Where's Thompson?" Atherton repeated, making no effort to return to bed. He felt like he was having the worst hangover of his life, but that just meant he was still alive.

The healer flicked her wand and he suddenly found himself being forced onto his back. He tried to raise himself back up, but it seemed that someone had put a sticking charm on the sheets.

Atherton swore as the healer began to lecture him about his reckless use of magic and utter disregard for his own safety. He sulked as she flitted over him, refusing to answer his questions about the state of his partner. Finally, she seemed satisfied that he wasn't about to spontaneously combust.

"I'll be able to discharge you in a few hours," she ignored his grumble of protest, "but you've got a visitor right now."

The door opened and a female auror with dark hair entered. Atherton recognized her immediately as Potter's assistant. Her big eyes were full of compassionate concern, but her voice was all business.

"The Head Auror wanted me to get a full report."

_Well at least I won't have to fill out that paperwork myself._

An hour later, the prospect of paperwork seemed much more palatable. Her exhaustive questioning rivaled some of the torture techniques he'd been subjected to last year. Finally, after what seemed like days of meticulous note-taking, followed by more observation from the healers, two aurors came to escort him away. The sun was beginning to dawn outside his window as Atherton collected his things. However, to his dismay, they directed him not to Thompson, but the Head Auror's office.

During an hour of waiting for Potter to finish a meeting with the Department Head, Atherton imagined everything that could have possibly gone wrong with Thompson's healing. Amidst thoughts of "_if only we had been a minute sooner..." _and _"we applied the __proper__countercurses__ but were unable to get a reaction..." _he had finally been ushered in to see Harry Potter looking tired and unkempt (although the latter part was the norm for him).

"Well, I've got good news and bad news," the Head Auror said, rubbing his brow.

"Why can't it just be good news and good news?" Atherton complained.

Potter smiled slightly, but shook his head. "I think you're well aware that that isn't really how things work around here." He gestured around his office, then sat behind his desk and motioned for Atherton to do the same. "I'll start with the good news."

Atherton looked at him expectantly.

"The healers are confident that Auror Thompson is going to make a full recovery."

Instantly, he felt more at ease.

"Never doubted it for a second," Atherton replied, leaning back in his seat.

"Right," Potter said doubtfully. He opened a drawer on his desk and glanced at something inside. "I asked to meet with you because I wanted to commend you, Atherton. I was told that without your actions, there's little doubt that Thompson would have died. So, more or less, you saved her life." He paused for a moment. "As Head Auror, I wanted to thank you personally for that."

"Er, isn't that kind of my job?" Atherton asked.

Potter chuckled. "Great deeds shouldn't be ignored just because I ask for them." Behind him, the portrait of Albus Dumbledore on the wall applauded quietly. "I think you'd be surprised by how many people wouldn't have known what to do in your shoes. Plenty of good aurors might have been too focused on the mission and lost sight of what was really important."

_ Get… him… Leave... _Thompson's strangled words echoed in his mind. He shivered and made a mental note to yell at her for attempting Atherton-assisted suicide.

"Not only did you manage to save your partner's life, you also had the sense to send for back-up. The office sent out a team to investigate as soon as you brought the anti-apparition wards down, of course, but if you hadn't sent your patronus off to lead them back to you… Well, it seems that Auror Thompson may owe you her life for more than one reason."

"Thanks," Atherton said uncomfortably. Abruptly, he recalled what Potter had told him originally. "So, what's the bad news?"

That got a sigh from the Head Auror. "Rowle escaped. The investigation team was on the wrong side of town to intercept him. We're still sweeping the area, but we're pretty certain that he managed to get outside the wards before we were able to make a perimeter."

Potter tapped a piece of parchment on his desk. Atherton recognized it as the assistant's intricate notes from his interrogation. "From what Raina told me, it looks like he was purchasing information about something." He ran a hand through his hair, making it even messier than before. "I don't like the sound of that. Rowle isn't really the type to do bit of light reading. Whatever he's looking for information on is probably bad news for the rest of us."

"What about the seller?" Atherton asked.

"I've got some ideas about who he might have been. There are only a few people I know of that would have something Rowle wants, and even fewer that would be willing to sell it to him. Based on Rowle's annoying ability to avoid being captured, I think we may want to focus the investigation on him for the time being." Potter paused. "So, are you up for it?"

"Sorry, what?"

"Are you up for leading the investigation?" Potter said, his face expectant.

Atherton started. So far as he was aware, only Auror Captains could lead investigations.

"But sir, I'm not—" he began to say.

"Oh, sorry. Did I not mention that I'm promoting you?" Potter reached into the drawer he had opened and withdrew an Auror Captain's badge. He tossed it to Atherton and grinned.

"I'm, but, sir, what?" Atherton gaped between the badge and the Head Auror, who had clearly lost his mind. "I mean… are you _sure, _sir? You didn't mean to give this to someone else?"

Potter shook his head firmly. "I'm quite sure, Atherton. You accept, I assume?"

"Yeah, of course. Yes sir. Thank you, sir," Atherton said, staring at the badge.

"Good! Now, I believe you'll have some work to do," Potter said. "But first, I'll make sure that St. Mungo's knows to give you access to Auror Thompson's room. In case you wanted to see her." He gave Atherton a knowing look.

"Right, thanks, again, sir." Atherton still wasn't quite able to get his words flowing properly yet. He rose and made for the door. He was halfway out when Potter called out.

"Oh, Atherton?"

He turned and cocked a brow.

"Try to stay on top of the paperwork, will you?"

"No promises."

Potter grinned as Atherton left the office.

OoOoO

The receptionist at St. Mungo's scowled at him. For whatever reason, Atherton seemed to be universally disliked by receptionists. Sometimes he was able to charm them into at least smiling, but for some reason he didn't think that would be as effective on the overweight balding man that was on duty at the moment.

"She's on the fourth floor," he said simply.

"What room?" Atherton asked impatiently.

"Forty-seven," the man said. He immediately turned back to the parchment in front of him, as though dissuading further questions, but Atherton was already halfway to the stairwell.

He moved upward quickly. He was in good enough shape that the exertion shouldn't have affected him much, but his heart began to pound stubbornly all the same. He reached the fourth floor and made his way to the named room. He was somewhat relieved to see that Potter had posted a guard outside the door.

There was a brief moment of confusion as the Auror (Fredericks, if Atherton remembered correctly) snapped to attention and addressed him as "sir." Then Atherton remembered that he had not, in fact, imagined the Auror Captain's badge on his chest.

"Is anyone inside at the moment?" he asked Fredericks.

"No sir. Er, except for Auror Thompson, sir."

Atherton almost smacked himself in the face, but instead he merely nodded solemnly. He motioned for the guard to move aside and reached for the doorknob. Again his heart pounded as he thought about what Thompson might say or do when she saw him. Would she be furious that he had saved her life and let Rowle escape? She didn't exactly think the most of him under the best circumstances, she may very well demand that he leave.

He gulped and pushed through the door brazenly. Thompson looked up in surprise at his abrupt entrance. He took a step inside and let the door go behind him. As it swung to a close, her eyes met his.

She smiled.


End file.
